Leah Lizarondo leaving 412 Food Rescue

Leah Lizarondo, the driving force behind a Pittsburgh organization providing millions of pounds of food to those in need, has announced she’s stepping down from her leadership role with 412 Food Rescue and its app Food Rescue Hero.

She is set to depart in the spring of 2023.

Since co-founding 412 Food Rescue, the organization has become a leader in salvaging discarded food from restaurants and stores and redirecting it to the hungry.

Lizarondo also founded the technology platform Food Rescue Hero, which is now used in more than 25 cities in the U.S. and Canada. It has also redirected more than 100 million pounds of perfectly good food and preventing it from going to waste, according to 412 Food Rescue.

The organization said more than 34,000 volunteers are registered on the app, which has been called the “Uber of Food Rescue,” making it the world‘s largest on demand, volunteer food transport network.

Lizarondo said it’s the accomplishment of which she is most proud.

“This is really an audacious idea,” she said. “How could we even think that we can mobilize tens of thousands of people to essentially be a ‘Doordash for Good?’ A lot of people don’t understand how amazing that is — moving millions of pounds of food, all with a volunteer network and feeding people who actually count on that food.”

Since co-founding 412 Food Rescue eight years ago, Lizarondo has led the organization’s growth from three employees to its current staff of 40.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, 412 Food Rescue introduced a home delivery function to its app. In a pilot phase since March 2020, volunteers have delivered 150,000 pounds of food to 1,000 households in Pittsburgh, the organization said.

For her efforts, Lizarondo has earned international recognition. This year she was named to the 2022 “Grist 50” list and also won the 2020 Global Leadership Award from Vital Voices, a women’s leadership organization co-founded by Hillary Clinton.

Lizarondo said she has no immediate plans other than to take a break to spend more time with her family — she is a single mother of three children ages 17, 16 and 10 — and travel to the Philippines. She is a native of Manila.

“I haven’t been back to the Philippines in so long, partly due to the pandemic and party due to just … life. There are a lot of milestones in my family next year and I want to celebrate those and that’s really what’s driving it,” she said. “The pandemic presents a lot of new things for all of us and for me it’s really family.”

Beth Slagle, chair of 412 Food Rescue’s board of directors, said the organization will conduct an extensive search for Lizarondo’s successor.

“Over the past eight years, I have been so proud to watch Leah lead the team to scale 412 Food Rescue and its innovative tech platform, Food Rescue Hero, from an idea into a movement of thousands of people across North America,” Slagle said. “Her discipline and tenacious commitment to a vision have transformed the landscape of food access in Pittsburgh, and this new model is now spreading around the country and the world.

“Leah’s leadership has been nothing short of transformative.”